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Princess Nudelman Hits Prime-Time

On Saturday Night Live's "Thursday Update" yesterday, Lake County's own "Princess the Goldfish" hit the big time when co-host Amy Poehler devoted a joke to the notorious story:

POEHLER: Election officials in Chicago's northern suburbs are ...

On Saturday Night Live's "Thursday Update" yesterday, Lake County's own "Princess the Goldfish" hit the big time when co-host Amy Poehler devoted a joke to the notorious story:

POEHLER: Election officials in Chicago's northern suburbs are trying to find out why voter registration was sent to Princess Nudelman, a goldfish. Oh, I don't know -- maybe because she has the world's most awesome goldfish name.

On a related note, after reading our explanation of the incident, a member of the Nudelman family wrote in to our comments section yesterday:

Wow. You're the first blogger that got the facts about Princess exactly
right. I'll add one thing - the group that sent us the registration
materials - probably Women's Voices, Women's Votes - didn't put their
name or address on the mailing. I thought the mailing came from the
Lake County Clerk's office. So, when we tried to correct the list, we
sent it there. That's how this all started.

Good point. Below is an updated explanation:

Partially filled-out registrations forms featuring the name of a pet
were sent to some Lake County residents. How did that happen? In the
case of Princess, the Nudelman family of Buffalo Grove used the fish's
name when they applied for an additional phone line
a while back. Apparently, "Princess Nudelman" then ended up on one of
the subscription lists used by the nonpartisan Voter Participation
Center (VPC) to target
unregistered female voters nationwide. When VPC checked the name
against the voter file and didn't find a match, they went ahead and
sent the partially-completed form to the Nudelmans. Thinking it had been mailed by the Lake County Clerk (theirs was the only address on the document), the family then
sent the form there with a humorous note
explaining that the fish was deceased. In short, Princess was never
"registered" nor are there reports of anyone trying to register their
pets.